Axis History Forum

This is an apolitical forum for discussions on the Axis nations and related topics hosted by the Axis History Factbook in cooperation with Christian Ankerstjerne’s Panzerworld and Christoph Awender's WW2 day by day.
Founded in 1999.

At the beginning of September 1921, it was clear that the German Red Cross would organize a medical aid expedition for Russia. Its primary objective was to provide support to Soviet authorities in combating epidemics in Petrograd, Minsk, but especially in the heavily affected area of the Volga-Germans. Head of the expedition was the Hamburg tropical medicine and malaria expert Prof. Peter Mühlens (1874-1943). The first destination of the expedition was Petrograd. On September 17, 1921, the DRK-Sanitätsschiff “Triton” left fully loaded the port of Stettin and reached Petrograd six days later. The “Hungerhilfe” [“hunger relief”] of Germany for Russia had started. From Petrograd, where the German-founded Alexander Hospital was available to the DRK, the other relief operations were organized. Medical trains left Petrograd for Moscow, Minsk and Kazan. Under the direction of the expedition participant and hygienist Heinz Zeiss, a central bacteriological laboratory of the German Red Cross was set up in Moscow. It soon cooperated successfully with other bacteriological examination offices in Moscow. Here, epidemiological expeditions were planned, health statistics kept, samples analyzed, vaccines produced and vaccination campaigns organized. Special tasks expected the DRK-sanitary train in Kazan. This central location of the Tatar republic offered a picture of horror. Plagues, misery and hunger had left the population in miserable condition. Above all, medical assistance and an improved water supply were urgently needed.
The relief operation of the German Red Cross ended in the spring of 1924. At this time, the main consequences of the famine disaster of the summer of 1921 were successfully fought. In many places, however, German doctors remained active. For example, the hygienist Heinz Zeiss in Moscow.
The German hygienist Heinz Zeiss possessed the goodwill of Lenin and the interest of Trotsky; He was closely associated with Prof. Nikolai Alexandrovich Semashko (1874-1949), the People's Commissar for the Soviet-Russian Health Service.
Zeiss reported in detail from the German Volga colonies, which he first visited in the late summer of 1922 to combat a malaria epidemic.
For the Foreign Office in Moscow, the work of Zeiss were very significant.